Page 40 of Bride of the Fae Prince

This isn’t my world. This isn’t where I belong.

I’mwronghere.

I need to turn around, to go back to where I belong. I’ll die if I walk into the Long Lost Wood. I’ll be torn to pieces, or lost like the souls of drowned sailors.If I take one step past that tree line, I will never come out again.

I know it as deeply as I know my own name.

A hand on my low back jolts me back to awareness. Ash’s face is hard, the cut of his jaw seeming harsher, his ears longer, more pointed. His teeth just the tiniest bit sharper.I search for that sweetness I’ve been so surprised to discover, but it’s not there in his face.

It’s in his touch, however.

I look away, focus on the warmth of his hand at my back as he guides me forward. Toward the tree line.

Every step is a battle. I know this is my future, that this is where I must go. But every fiber in my being resists, telling me this is wrong, this is dangerous, this is my death. It takes everything in me to not turn around and run.

I take a deep breath, lifting my gaze to the trees, to the strange lights like fireflies in the forest.

I faced last night. I can face this.

Setting my shoulders, I keep pace with Ash and don’t flinch as we approach the forest. The wind picks up, slicing like ice against my skin. That tang fills my nostrils until I’m almost choking with each breath. When we reach the edge of the forest, the wind shifts into strange, wispy voices.

Let me taste your flesh, mortal.

Save us!

Fly away little bird, before his jaws snap your wings.

“Don’t listen to them,” says Ash.

I look up at him. His eyes are made of iron, flashing with darkness as his hair blows away from his face. When he speaks, the points of his incisors gleam.They’re definitely longer than they were before.

“Will you come with me, mortal wife?” he asks, holding out his upturned hand.

Something is different. Something is wrong. I swallow.

I trust him.Even if he frightens me.

I slip my hand in his and nod. He says nothing more, a grim satisfaction playing across his features.He takes a step, draws me after him—until we’re swallowed by the forest.

Everything goes quiet. There is no wind. No sound. No whispers. Barely any sunlight. Only an unending, hushed sort of expectancy. A pregnant stillness ready to give birth.

Ash turns around without making a sound. He issues a silent command, and Rahk is at my side a second later. His hand rests on the hilt of the sword at his hip.

Ash lets go of me and strides forward into the forest. At his footsteps, the trees . . .shift.They part, as if playing pieces on a board game, sliding away and clearing a path. The ferns covering the ground do the same until all that is before me is a wooded archway and a carpet of pine needles.

With a gentle pressure on my back, Rahk urges me forward. I obey, moving slower than my husband, who marches ahead through the living arch as if he is master over them.

Perhaps heistheir master.

The rest of our entourage makes no noise as we pass through the forest, despite the trunks they carry. If I didn’t look back, I’d have thought they weren’t still with us.

Despite knowing nothing about him, Rahk is a comfort at my side. Ash trusts him, so I trust him, too. When the steward comes and takes my other side, not touching me but standing between me and the rest of the forest, I am extra grateful.

Ahead, the trees part before Ash, until they reveal a door. It’s a simple wooden door with a brass knocker. Golden light leaks around its edges and through its keyhole, as though opening it would reveal a small sun on the other side. Ash stands facing thedoor, legs wide and shoulders back as the rest of us catch up. He looks over his shoulder, finds me, and there’s something in his gaze that I do not recognize at all.

A shiver goes down my spine.

He reaches out, grabs the handle, and when he twists it, light bursts from the cracks in the door with blinding intensity. I find myself reaching out and gripping Rahk’s sleeve, turning my face away.

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